


The Coast (Your Ghost)

by bladeangel



Series: Witchertober 2020 [1]
Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: And also how this funding is the embezzled, Angst, Because local governments, Character Death, Gen, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, I have OPINIONS about how witcher contracts are funded, Jaskier goes to the coast, Post-Episode: S01E06 Rare Species, Sad Ending, Several OCs and a whole ass OC village, The Coast, Witchertober2020, but i dont have them, gratuitos mentions of drowners, i spent three hours trying to figure out the geography of witcher netflix, no beta we die like stregobore should have, prompt, there are regrets, they dont kill jaskier btw, witchertober 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:48:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26809147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bladeangel/pseuds/bladeangel
Summary: In the odd moment of hysterical humour Jaskier felt sorry for the poor sods, who years from now would write entire essays and dissertations puzzling over why a famous bard from Redania would, under the looming shadow of a coming war, decide to forever disappear from the public eye with little but a cryptic song about the coast to precede him.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia & Jaskier | Dandelion
Series: Witchertober 2020 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1955281
Comments: 3
Kudos: 32





	The Coast (Your Ghost)

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Witchertober day 1 prompt - The Coast.  
> I got inspired by the Witchertober prompts from Bamf-Jaskier on Tumblr and decided to take a crack at day one's prompt even though its the fourth already. I might do some of the others in the future since their pretty nice.  
> Sorry for the angst life is shit right now and this is the first time ive written in close to a year.

Jaskier stumbled on another root, the crack of his lute across a wayward branch a dull counter point to the grunt he let out on his way down. Sprawled in the dirt Jaskier took a minute to gather his thoughts, the canopy above him thin enough to give him a glimpse of the slowly darkening sky. Jaskier gave up on the notion of travelling any further until the morning, and instead began to clear a space to camp for the night.

The turn at the last crossway meant that Jaskier was far from any towns, the path beneath his feet more of a suggestion than anything, cutting straight though the heart of the land without a single diversion through any human settlements along the way. It made travel difficult, with the greater presence of wildlife so far from the well-tended main roads and little human presence to allow the bard to easily stock up on supplies and coin. Instead relying on hunting and foraging to ensure he kept fed on his way.

The trip was joyless. Jaskier walked from early morning until past dusk, too tired to even strum his lute as he travelled, even though the sound would discourage any curious beasts from making an easy meal of him. It was, the quickest route from the dragon mountains to the Kovir coast. Bypassing any villages with potential contractors in want of a witcher or demanding tavern-goers looking for songs of heroics.

_Solitude and silence._

Sat by the slow-burning fire he had started for the night, Jaskier played absent-mindedly with his skewer, rabbit long consumed, the bard drew idle shapes in the dirt, laying out the notes to a half-formed dirge before his fingers began sketching out the shape of the lands he had travelled, well-learned fingers drawing empires and cities and barely known border kingdoms with the same confident strokes.

Nearly a month into his journey, Jaskier found himself thinking more of the future, both his and the world in general. The bard had already secured his own place in history, the many songs he had written over the past twenty odd years – from common jigs to high-brow ballads- as well as his past performances in royal courts up and down the continent, meant that for the next few hundred years at least, the name of the Master Bard Jaskier would be remembered.

And yet.

The world itself was uncertain, borders blurring and villages disappearing off the map. The future of the continent was uncertain such that only those who could see the signs knew to worry. Nilfgaard rose in the south, chewing up any lands in their path on the way to Cintra, while a cold wind blew in from the west bringing with it the tidings of dangers in other lands. Armies marched to prepare for war and nobles began to retreat to safer lands, common folk stayed in place hopeless with the knowledge that whether war came to their doors or not they had no escape.

_Jaskier went to the coast._

In the odd moment of hysterical humour Jaskier felt sorry for the poor sods, who years from now would write entire essays and dissertations puzzling over why a famous bard from Redania would, under the looming shadow of a coming war, decide to forever disappear from the public eye with little but a cryptic song about the coast to precede him.

The village he had settled in under his birth name was small and distrustful of outsiders. With little in the way of trade and a small multi-purpose shack to serve as town-hall, tavern, healers house and inn. Not that Jaskier had stayed near the village. A hut closer to the beaches suited him fine, the local monster population easily dispatched with the information he remembered from his years traveling with- well it didn’t matter did it? Not anymore.

Jaskier spent those first months keeping to himself, living off the land and expanding his hut so that it was closer to a proper house rather than the over ambitious lean-to it started its life as, he ignored the sense of being watched. The distant presence of the local villagers that observed him as he went about his day, fishing, building, foraging, and dispatching any monsters that got in his way. Existing side by side with them in the same way one would share space with an unacquainted cat.

When Jaskier returned to the village proper, nearly a year into his stay, to buy the few household things he could not forage for himself, the people treated him as if he had always been there. Not so much welcoming him into the village as pretending that he had been there from the start. The shopkeepers served him without a word and fishermen hired him to clear their way during trips, coming back quicker and safer without the worry of drowners or other water beasts to hold them up.

The people of the village, Jaskier knew, had not payed their taxes in many years, content in the knowledge that their little scattering of houses was well beneath the notice of any lord looking for additional income. While that lack of notice meant that none of the local boys were drafted when war began to draw nearer – something Jaskier later learned had been the intention of the widowed mothers who first established the village-. It also meant that they could not ask the local lord for the funds needed to hire a Witcher to deal with their monster problems. Which in turn meant Witchers, who only took contracts in return for coin avoided the area and travelled towards more lucrative prospects.

That was where Jaskier came in. Compared to some of the beasts he had seen at G- at _his_ side, drowners were child’s play as long as he prepared in advance. Jaskier lived off the land around his hut and made his coin as an occasional monster slayer. This far away from the rest of civilisation the second fact did not carry, nor did the presence of a blue-eyed man, who as far the locals were concerned had always been there.

The people were grateful in their own gruff way, and so long as he kept to his hut and left them alone, they were content to leave him be. Never asking after his past, the books that he filled with writing, the heartbreak that he carried with the familiarity of a lute on his back nor the music that echoed from the beach late some nights.

_This was how Jaskier spent the rest of his days._

He _took himself of off_ \- he left the rest of the continent to its troubles and made a living in a quiet village far away from the rest of the world, under a name that had never fit, doing things that kept him living but gave him no life, at least not the way traveling had, not the way singing-performing-creating had. Jaskier the Master Bard had secured his place in the annals of history leaving in his wake songs lived on in the minds and hearts of scholars and common folk everywhere. In a way he had died long ago and yet at the same time his works made him immortal.

Julian of No’rock died a beaten old man, feverish and forgetful, laying on the sole cot in the shack that served as inn and sick house, in quiet village that would forget him with same ease it had made him a part of it. In his wake he left a hut, some books, a well-loved lute and the silver-haired stranger who walked in moments after his passing, asking after a blue-eyed bard.

**Author's Note:**

> This started out as me exploring the fact that scholars in the future of the netflix witcher'verse would probably be as obsessed with the coast as the fandom is only in, like an academic context. Except it devolved into Jaskier dealing with his post dragon mountain heartbreak and the forthcoming war by giving up on music and disappearing to a middle of nowhere village on the coast to live out the rest of his life in obscurity.  
> Yes that is Geralt in the end looking for his bard, except well Jaskier (who went by Julian in his new life) hasn't been a bard in a very long time. Witcher time is very different from human time afterall.


End file.
